Pope Martin IV

Pope Martin IV (1218-28 March 1285), born Simon de Brion, was Pope from 22 February 1281 to 28 March 1285, succeeding Pope Nicholas III and preceding Pope Honorius IV.

Biography
Simon de Brion was born in 1218 in the chateau of Meinpincien in Ile-de-France, Kingdom of France, and he became Archdeacon of Rouen in 1259. King Louis IX of France appointed him as treasurer of the Church of St. Martin in Tours, and in 1281 he was elected Pope after Charles of Anjou imprisoned two Italian cardinals for interfering with the election. Rome did not want to accept a Frenchman as pope, so he was instead crowned at Orvieto. He excommunicated Emperor Michael VIII of Byzantium at Charles' insistence, for he had plans to restore the Latin Empire; Martin's decision broke the Second Council of Lyon in 1274's repairing of relations between Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. Martin IV sought to preserve the Kingdom of Sicily for Charles after the 1282 Sicilian Vespers uprising against Charles' rule, and he excommunicated Pere III of Aragon and declared the "Aragonese Crusade" against him in 1284, but these actions proved fruitless, and he died in 1285.